New Challenges Facing Curricula in KSA in Light of Vision 2030: Major Objectives and Curriculum Design

Abstract

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is heading towards a comprehensive revolution socially, economically, politically, medically and scientifically. The features of the change are very well embodied mainly in the vision 2030 and in the National Transformation Program (NTP). The features and objectives are distributed among the different ministries and institutions in the Kingdom. The current study investigated the main objectives related to the Ministry of Education. The research tools are: a survey of the vision 2030 and the NTP documents to decide on the main objectives related to education, an interview with curriculum design specialists to discuss the credibility and applicability of the objectives and a unit designed by the researcher in which he includes whatever possible of these objectives. The findings of the study revealed that the objectives (related to students’ outcomes, curriculum design and teacher training) are very well embodied in vision 2030 and NTP. The interviews with educators showed that these objectives are achievable if implemented by very well trained teachers and highly motivated students. The study recommended teacher training that matches the new challenges in terms of teaching strategies, updating curricula, and reconsidering the main goals of the teaching learning process.